Human Rights Group The Society for Russian Chechen Friendship Targeted, january 2005

Front Line is concerned by reports received about the targeting of staff of the Society for Russian Chechen Friendship (SRCF) in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation. The Society for Russian Chechen Friendship is an active human rights group that provides daily press releases on the human rights situation in the Chechen Republic. Human rights defenders of the SRCF participated in the Front Line Platform in Dublin in 2003 and the organisation has received the 2004 'Recognition Award' from the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. According to the information received, on January 20th 2005 agents of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) conducted a raid on the office of the SRCF, seizing the newspaper statute, registration documents, and other internal documents.

Just prior to this raid, Stanislav Dmitrievsky, Co-Chair of the SRCF and Chief Editor of the Human Rights Defense newspaper was informed at the FSB offices that a criminal case was being initiated against the newspaper in connection with several articles published by the Human Rights Defense Newspaper. According to the information received, the FSB have informed the Society for Russian Chechen Friendship that the aforementioned publications infringe Statute 280 of Russian Criminal Code, which covers public appeals to violent change of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation. According to the information received, Stanislav Dmitrievsky, was subsequently charged.

Front Line would like to express its concern at this most recent attempt to curtail the SRCF's right to freedom of expression and freedom to report human rights violations. Since its inception, four members of the SRCF have been killed in the course of their human rights work. Furthermore, on 12 July 2004 the offices of the Society for Russian Chechen Friendship in Karabulak, Ingushetia were raided by 30 armed members of the military police.

The right of the SRCF to continue to publish human rights violations in the 'Human Rights Defense’ is enshrined in Article 6(b) of the United Nations Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted by consensus by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1998. This article states: “As provided for in human rights and other applicable international instruments, freely to publish, impart or disseminate to others views, information and knowledge on all human rights and fundamental freedoms”